Having read TFA, the headline is uncomfortably accurate. This thing may have qubits, but there's no evidence of entanglement (which is kind of the whole point performance-wise). So it may or may not be a quantum computer as we think of it.

can someome explain it to me like i am 7 how quantum computers are so more awesome? I get bits and peices of the idea but for some reason i reach a mental block how exactly everything falls into place and is usable.

Loki009:can someome explain it to me like i am 7 how quantum computers are so more awesome? I get bits and peices of the idea but for some reason i reach a mental block how exactly everything falls into place and is usable.

Loki009:can someome explain it to me like i am 7 how quantum computers are so more awesome? I get bits and peices of the idea but for some reason i reach a mental block how exactly everything falls into place and is usable.

Let's say you're doing a brute force search for a number that has some property, because you don't have any better way to find it. You just test 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and so on until you find the one you want. What quantum computing lets you do is test multiple numbers at the same time, because science. The reason entanglement is so important is because it determines how many numbers you can run at once. For each additional "qubit" you entangle, you double the amount of numbers that can be tested at a time. 1 qubit can do 2 numbers at once, 2 qubits can do 4, 3 can do 8, and so on. Hopefully you don't need the for-dummies version of the exponential function to see why that's so awesome.

The only problem is that entangled states are ridiculously fragile, so the exponential performance boost is offset by an exponential difficulty curve in getting the qubits to cooperate. The current record according to the Googles is 14 qubits (16k numbers at once), which is impressive but not nearly enough to do all the fancy crap quantum computing is often advertised as being able to do.

Olympic Trolling Judge:Loki009: can someome explain it to me like i am 7 how quantum computers are so more awesome? I get bits and peices of the idea but for some reason i reach a mental block how exactly everything falls into place and is usable.

Let's say you're doing a brute force search for a number that has some property, because you don't have any better way to find it. You just test 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and so on until you find the one you want. What quantum computing lets you do is test multiple numbers at the same time, because science. The reason entanglement is so important is because it determines how many numbers you can run at once. For each additional "qubit" you entangle, you double the amount of numbers that can be tested at a time. 1 qubit can do 2 numbers at once, 2 qubits can do 4, 3 can do 8, and so on. Hopefully you don't need the for-dummies version of the exponential function to see why that's so awesome.

The only problem is that entangled states are ridiculously fragile, so the exponential performance boost is offset by an exponential difficulty curve in getting the qubits to cooperate. The current record according to the Googles is 14 qubits (16k numbers at once), which is impressive but not nearly enough to do all the fancy crap quantum computing is often advertised as being able to do.

That helps quite a bit. Thanks. It also confirms that the entanglement part blows a fuse in my brain. I just have a hard time with the idea of entanglement. Not sure why but just doesn't seem like it should work that way to me